Page 205 of Her Reluctant Hero
He nodded to the counselor. “Get her to help you. If you run out of time, leave them here.” Not a good plan, she decided as he disappeared head first into the cave.
The fire was so close, so loud, she almost didn’t hear him call for the kids. Peyton hefted the biggest girl by her shoulders and lowered her cautiously in. A tug on the child’s legs told her Gabe had the girl, and she reached for the next child.
She couldn’t pass them in fast enough. The children whimpered at the approaching fire. The rocks on which they stood heated and when the girls went down on their bellies, they cried in pain. Peyton noticed with horror that the soles of the counselor’s cheap tennis shoes were melting and sticking to the rock beneath them.
Finally, only the counselor was left and the fire practically licked their heels. Peyton shoved Gabe’s pack at the counselor, who took it and pushed it ahead of her through the opening. Peyton dove in with her own pack the moment the counselor’s bubbling rubber-soled shoes were out of sight.
The passage was both rough and steep, so she half slid, half stutter-stopped, letting gravity do most of the work. Her helmet tumbled down before her, and then the tunnel was pitch dark.
The last little bit of the passage was almost vertical and she lost her grip and tumbled into Gabe. He caught her, but with her pack added to her weight, she knocked him on his butt. He went down with his arms around her, still in protective mode.
For a moment, Peyton let herself stay there, her cheek against his chest, listening to the thundering of his heart telling her he’d been as frightened as she. They’d made it. By working together, they’d made it. For the first time she realized how close they were to dying. He squeezed her a bit, as if to remind her she was safe, before he released her.
“I bet you wish you hadn’t begged to come,” he murmured, setting her aside to see to the campers.
“I haven’t decided yet.” She reached for her helmet, and saw the surprise on his face in the dim light from her headlamp.
The cave wasn’t tall enough for the adults to stand, and the section they were in was too narrow for them to sit. After giving everyone a drink of water, Gabe took the lead to find more comfortable quarters. Exhausted, tears streaking their soot-blackened faces, the children followed.
The floor by the entrance had been littered with stones, but as they moved deeper, the floor became smoother, washed by rainwater over the years. Peyton wondered how far in they’d have to go to satisfy Gabe, and how the hell they were going to get out.
Fortunately for his charges, Gabe didn’t need to go much farther. He found an eye-shaped “room”, narrow at each end, open in the middle, where they would all comfortably fit. He scoured the room with his flashlight, searching for dangers before declaring it safe.
The fatigued children dropped to the floor in a heap. Peyton plopped down and rummaged through her pack. To Gabe’s amazement, she pulled out about a half-dozen bags of cookies and passed them out to the girls, who came to life to devour them ravenously. She handed over a bottle of water for them to share as well, gave another to the counselor.
“Cookies, rookie?” he asked skeptically.
“Hypoglycemia,” she said without a glance.
“Glucose pills are better and don’t take as much space. Those have to be crumbs by now.”
When she realized he wouldn’t ream her for her secret, she lifted her head and studied him through the gloomy light. “But pills wouldn’t do us any good right now with hungry kids, would they?” She tossed him a pack of sugary crumbs.
He grinned and tossed them back, opening his own pack. “I prefer beef jerky.”
“Tough guy,” she muttered. “Like you couldn’t use some sweetening up.”
He laughed, then noticed the counselor leaning against a rock on the edge of the floor, slowly peeling off her ruined shoes.
Gabe hadn’t realized she’d been wearing thin-soled tennis shoes, but at her cry of pain, he carried his pack over and knelt by her. He handed her the flashlight and tugged off his gloves to inspect the damage. The rubber soles had not only melted outside, but inside around the insole, and stuck to her socks, which weren’t very thick themselves. She had to be hurting, but how the hell would she get down the mountain with no shoes?
An afterthought, he reached for the radio at his belt and yanked his hand away with a yelp. The supposedly fire-resistant tool had melted into a gray clump. Useless. He looked over at Peyton, who was pouring the last of the cookie crumbs down her throat and wadding up the cellophane bag.
“Hey, rookie, you wouldn’t happen to have a cell phone in your magic pack, would you?”
She gave him a withering stare and reached into a pocket in the front of her pack. Damn, if she had one, it’d be melted to hell too.
The shiny silver job she held out to him was intact. “It won’t do us any good in here.”
“No, but once we go up, we’ll call a medevac chopper.” He took the phone and placed it by his pack, then turned back to the counselor. “This is going to hurt, but probably less now than later when the rubber cools and hardens again.”
The woman nodded and braced herself against the wall. Without being asked, Peyton slid over and put her arm around the woman’s shoulders. Observant was good. He sent Peyton a glance of appreciation, which she acknowledged with a small smile.
“What’s your name?” she asked, and when the woman focused on Gabe, Peyton tilted her face toward her and repeated the question.
Stubborn could be good too.
“Josie.”
